


Please don't take him just because you can

by middlemarch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Pandemics, References to the Muppets, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Workplace, and encouraging public health initiatives, grocery workers ARE essential staff, hand sanitizer, handwashing, sexy hand sanitizer, stand 6 feet away, wash your hands for 20+ seconds, we all have our ways of coping with social distancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: It wasn't a terrible job, it was the pandemic. Rey kept telling herself that, hoping she'd believe it. Or that it would all turn out to be a bad dream caused by eating government cheese before bed.Still, there were bright spots.
Relationships: Finn & Rey & Rose Tico, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	Please don't take him just because you can

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BroadwayBaggins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroadwayBaggins/gifts).



“Can you believe we’re considered essential workers, Finn? Like, where’s my hazard pay for explaining that yes, we’re out of yeast, shallots and all the frozen French-cut green beans? Not nutritional yeast, regular old yeast in packets,” Rey groused, lifting probably the nine millionth can of mediocre tuna-in-water onto the shelf. At least restocking, they could chat. When they were both at check-out, they might as well be a thousand miles apart.

“I’m glad we’re getting a paycheck,” Finn said. “Though I hear your righteous rage at the capitalist system that exploits and demeans us while expecting us to get our butts in here by 5 am so we can make sure the seniors have plenty of oatmeal and dried apricots to buy.”

“I dunno. This is so weird. Maybe we’re the lucky ones. We have something to do that makes a difference,” Rey said. Rose was going bananas at home with her dissertation defense indefinitely postpone, though JSTOR giving free access had made her squeal like Miss Piggy’s long-long sister. Assuming Piggy wouldn’t have taken that sister out.

“It is what it is,” Finn said, almost growling, mimicking Poe mimicking Luke doing his Zen-master thing. It somehow worked so Rey laughed. Just then, as if that tiny bit of levity had conjured him up to squash it more brutally than any potato bug had ever been squashed, Ben appeared at the end of the aisle, positively looming in his manager’s pique polo, his dark hair flopping across his face most ominously. Finn had once categorized Ben’s hair-flops and this was one of the worst in terms of ominous-ness. The pandemic’s silver lining was that he literally couldn’t afford to fire either of them. It wasn’t much.

“Rey, a word,” Ben said curtly. It was his best adverb. 

“Now?” She held a can of tuna in each hand like she was Lady Justice balancing the scales. 

“Now,” he said, without any modification. She threw Finn a look that said “Come find my body if I don’t return.” He nodded, very slightly. He wouldn’t let her down.

“So…” Rey said, once they were in the dead-empty prepared food area, not quite six feet apart. He better not kill her, Ben Solo, store manager of Empire Foods, which was a preposterous and self-aggrandizing name even when they had plenty of frozen French-cut beans and shallots. And yeast, nutritional or otherwise. He better not kill her except with his gorgeous dark eyes and those shoulders that made a forest green polo look like Galahad’s armor and those hands, so elegant it was like a graphic designer had drawn them to get an internship in Milan. 

“So, you were really good to come in early. I saw the way you helped the older shoppers,” Ben said. She’d left out his voice in the list of things that might kill her, a colossal mistake, so one she was familiar with making.

“They’re scared. I get it,” Rey said. “It doesn’t cost anything to be kind.”

“I can’t get the board to give you guys extra money,” he said. Was it bitterly? Did he sound bitter about being told no? “I tried, I told them—”

“They didn’t listen, huh? Go figure, a bunch of execs not caring about the little guy,” Rey said. “Gal. Whatever.” Not bitterly, because who had time for that? 

“Here,” Ben said, tossing something at her without any fucking warning at all. Fortunately, she had decent reflexes and also a lot of motivation not to look like an idiot in front of him.

“What?”

“It’s the last hand sanitizer in the store. The good kind, with aloe,” he said, dropping his insanely long lashes as he spoke. It was a pretty big bottle too, so it was good she’d caught it and not gotten clocked.

“You didn’t have to do this. Ben,” Rey said. Damn, she sounded awkward. She looked at the bottle in her hand; it was pretty big, eight ounces at least. And brand-name, not generic. 

“You deserve more. I’m sorry. I’ll keep trying but at least, maybe this’ll help a little,” Ben said.

“I use soap and water at home, but it’s hard here,” she said. It wasn’t going to pay the rent, but who knew—it might save her life. Ben was looking at her like that was something that might actually be important to him.

“What do you sing?” he said, as if that were apropos of anything. Oh! He meant washing her hands.

“You don’t think I sing “Happy birthday?’” she asked.

“You’re not that basic.” She laughed and he smiled. God, what a smile he had!

“Jolene. Dolly Parton. Classic,” she said.

“ _I'm begging of you please don't take my man/ Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene/ Please don't take him just because you can…_ ” Ben sang in a totally unfair baritone. She had to work another eight hours minimum and she was going to hear the song in her head the whole time, in Ben’s undeniably sexy voice.

“You have good taste, Rey,” Ben said.

“Damn straight,” she said, shrugging. She was an engineering student working double shifts at a grocery store during a pandemic to try and pay her rent and her student loans. She’d take what she could get. Which was evidently free hand sanitizer and fantasies about her boss that, based on the look he was giving her, might have some basis in reality. 

Couldn’t someone ask if they were out of two percent?

**Author's Note:**

> Having written two stories with sexy hand-washing, I felt it was time to branch out. I have included some details from my grocery run today and some tips on how to stay safe-- wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, let the seniors have a protected time to shop and pay our grocery store workers for their risky jobs. 
> 
> Title is from "Jolene" by Dolly Parton.
> 
> Lady Justice (Latin: Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are a blindfold, a balance, and a sword. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia, who holds a mirror and a snake.


End file.
